Manchester Chronicle

For the latest news see;

http://www.manchester-family-history-research.co.uk/new_page_27.htm

Includes news on access to the 1911 census.

I'm not doing too good a job of keeping this blog updated am I?
Consider it a mercy, life at the moment seems to consist of listing some books, boxing up others to pass on to either other sellers or charity shops, yes, I know charity shops are sellers too but you know what I mean.

Oh, and as an exciting third option some get thrown in the sacks for recycling, not even the meanest charity shops want to sell kids books covered in teeth marks and crayon.

When I admitted on a forum to discarding unsellable books, I was accused of "disgraceful behaviour"! That got me to thinking, nobody has ever castigated anybody for throwing out newspapers and yet the more serious papers have more worthwhile content than yer average chick-lit novel! A mass market paperback in poor condition is to my mind far more environmentally sound pulped than it is preserved.

Mind you, when I had a garden sending waste paper for pulping was always a last rather than first option. The centres from toilet and kithen rolls were used as pots for raising pea and bean seedlings. Newspaper was incorported into the compost heap, used as a mulch and also for making even more pots for seedling.
I had a pile of newspaper in the corner of a shed that mice used to nest in, slowly but steadily the mice would shread this heap into very small pieces and add nitrogen.

Some folk grow vegetables, others flowers, whilst I did both those, my real pride was my compost heap, or should I say heaps.
I never suffered a shortage of material as I cut the churchyard several times a year letting the cut wilt for a few days and then dragging it into my garden almost next to the yard.
It gave me much pleasure to stand at the end of the garden with the morning mug of tea watching the heap steam gently in the morning sun.
Turning them was also a treat as they would invariably contain grass snakes and slow worms.

Oh, talking about treats. I've been thinking for sometime that my big bookcase was in the wrong place. It only needed moving about two feet but as it is about five feet high, four feet wide and full of books and in the end took me about an hour to move those two feet, perhaps you'll understand why it took me awhile to get round to doing it.
It was pushed up right into a corner and moving it away from the corner immediately made the room look better, so it was an hour well spent.

Have a look at some of the books I've been listing at http://biblio.co.uk/bookstores/John_Holden.html
and never hesitate to ask if you think I might have something you can't see in my stock or if you think a bulk order deserves a discount.

You know when you get up in the morning and sort books and catalogue some books and then sort some more you are forced to the conclusion that you haven't actually done anything that you even want to remember let alone relate to somebody else.

Actualy, that isn't all strictly true, I have taken a few minutes off to get worked up about the postal strike, well not so much about the strike but by all the folk who think RM should be privatised, and can you believe some of these are booksellers! Sheesh, it will be so much better when it is cheaper for our customers to buy books from the US than from the UK!

Seemingly we can do all the communication we need via the internet, because we only use the Royal Mail for sending cheques, birthday cards and love letters. We don't need RM at all if we just got organised and embraced modern technology!

I have a problem reconciling that with what my local post office says. They say that if they lose their on-line sellers who actually go in and pay them for postage they will go out of business.

Either the RM or the PO is lying and having seen how many people go into the PO clutching packets and large letters, I know who my money is on.

Nearly threw the radio out of the window today when some wally proclaimed that there where many options cheaper than RM for sending parcels! Parcel Force for instance would be better according to some but better for who you have to ask?

Well, I checked, I had a large letter to post. By RM it will cost me 76p, by the much cheaper Parcel Force it would cost only £10.50! They must have changed arithmatic since I left school cos £10.50 used to be a lot more than 76p, not a lot less.

Better nudge you towards some books whilst you can still afford the postage

http://biblio.co.uk/bookstores/John_Holden.html

Oh well, that's me done.

More listing and not much else today.
In a fit of madness or something, I listed some paperbacks on www.Greenmetropolis.com several at considerably less than I might have listed them elsewhere, go here and see if you can find them, https://www.greenmetropolis.com/member.asp?id=54852

Brrr, winter draws on, if I can plough through about another ten or fifteen boxes of books I can get to the back of my store and move my heater up to my flat. Then I can stop sitting here dressed like Nanook of the North and be warm.

I love my customers, both actual and potential, although I advertise my books in Australia, I had an email today from somebody in Australia asking if I minded posting books there, I do, I love it.

I listed this yesterday http://www.biblio.com/books/267441818.html the closest you'll get to perpetual motion, go see.

Well it was a nice sunny afternoon in Manchester today. Had a couple of people call round to collect books so took the opportunity to move some boxes out of the store so that they could be sorted through in relative comfort.

That gave me the opportunity to get in and do some tidying up and sorting. If I get rid of some more of the empty boxes, I'll not exactly have broken the back of the job but at least I can see the back to break it!

Meanwhile, while my attention was elsewhere the local Somerfield's has turned into a Co-op store. With memories of my mothers divvy number, I suspect I'll end up with the modern equivilent, a swipe card! Though unless they are considerably cheaper than Somerfield's, I doubt if I'll earn much of a divvy.

Been so overwhelmed by books for the last week that I even did some overdue housework today with a willing heart!

Ah well, when I get through this glut of books I look forward to doing some restoration and repair on some nice books and showing some books off on here, but that won't be next week!

Oh dear, I wish I could say that I'd been so busy packing and posting books that I'd had no time to post anything here but the truth is that sales are really slow at the moment. Most of my waking hours are spent either cataloguing or sorting through books.

I did manage an hour for coffee with a friend which broke the day nicely, trouble was I had to come back and do more cataloguing!

The bosses are doing a good job of turning the public against the posties, sellers predicting that a few one day strikes will put them out of business. It reminds me, on a smaller scale, of the miners, the government with no intention of reaching any agreement, their sole purpose to smash the CWU so that they can privatise Royal Mail. The joke is that I can find nobody who comes even close to competing with Royal Mail who does not rely on RM for the final mile.

Still it'll cut the christmas card list down, how many cards will you send at £5.95 postage a card?

Ah well, throw a book seller a crust and visit http://biblio.co.uk/bookstores/John_Holden.html

Well, put an offer on realcycle, the Manchester freecycle group, offering books. I got rid of three whole boxes! The first guy was easy, he took two boxes of anything that would add to his emigration fund, and will probably take more over the next few months. The third box has to be a bit more specific, which I don't mind as I have to sort through everything any way.
I'm not complaining but it would have been nice to shift a dozen boxes over the weekend.

Looks as if I'll have to brush up my book repairing skills as well. I tend to avoid books that need more than a basic clean or a few minutes with an eraser but today I've found a few books that really justify some more major work repairing hinges and the like.
I also found two almost identical books, almost because they both have bits missing. Although the value doesn't justify it, it will be interesting to see if I can make one good copy out of the two.

Good resolutions go by the wayside. After collecting all the books this week I felt physically wrecked but much better and more energised.
I resolved to get a lot more exercise, I don't think a five minute walk to the shop and back counts, nor does lifting a few books to catalogue really get the blood pumping.

I didn't do the book view results this week for several reasons, the main one being that I forgot!

Today I slept in late and when I got down to some work I spent some time sorting out stuff I didn't want to sell, nothing much wrong with it but it doesn't fit my plan for world domination :-).

Found one book that I nearly chucked straight in the bin but on checking realised it was worth an hour or two spent restoring it.
Had a grumble at the biblio search engine but I'll say no more than if you want something and suspect I might have it, ask me, same goes for fiction or low value items, if you take a fancy to anything ask me for a discount, it will be forthcoming on most items.

My books can still be seen at http://biblio.co.uk/bookstores/John_Holden.html and though I'm not uploading huge numbers of titles, I am uploading some quite tasty items.

Hey, you expect excitement in the life of a bookseller! You crazy or something, I spend most of the day at the computer with on one side a heap of books to catalogue and on the other an equally large stack of books that don't come up to scratch. The charity shops love me!

g'night.

I've had to cancel the sale at http://biblio.co.uk/bookstores/John_Holden.html
whilst I work round a technical glitch that resulted in about half the books on sale being removed from the site and not available to buy.

Wish me luck:-)

After nearly 36 hours shifting and sorting books, less sleep time, I feel a) very sore and b) a lot more optimistic. I've found some very nice books already and even have few listed.

The big problem I have now is that boxes are stacked right up the door of my bookstore and getting to my listed stock involves moving about 50 boxes, one time I'm grateful for slow sales.

Anybody in the area wanting a few boxes of books is welcome to come and pick some up. They will be slightly cherry-picked but as my interests are quite specialist there will still be bargains in there.

Actually, bargain suggests money changing hands, not so, you'll be doing me a favour by taking some, however if you offered me a drink I wouldn't be offended.

If you are interested and want to find me, follow this link :-)

http://biblio.co.uk/bookstores/John_Holden.html

Meanwhile, the hole in the road gets deeper but still holds up.